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Billy Tauzin
|birth_place=Chackbay, Louisiana, U.S. |death_date= |death_place= |spouse=(1) Gayle Clement Tauzin (2) Cecile Tauzin |profession=Politician, Lawyer, Lobbyist |religion= |footnotes= }} Wilbert Joseph "Billy" Tauzin II ( ; born June 14, 1943) is an American lobbyist and politician. He was President and CEO of PhRMA, a pharmaceutical company lobby group. He was also a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1980 to 2005, representing Louisiana's 3rd congressional district. Personal life Of Cajun descent, he is a lifelong resident of Chackbay, a small town just outside Thibodaux, Tauzin graduated from Nicholls State University in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree and earned a law degree from Louisiana State University in 1967. While attending law school, he served as a legislative aide in the Louisiana state Senate. He is married to Cecile Tauzin and has five children by a previous marriage. Political career Tauzin began his elective career in 1972, when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives and served four full terms as a Democrat. In 1979, 3rd District Congressman Dave Treen, Louisiana's first Republican congressman since Reconstruction, was elected the state's first Republican governor since that time. He resigned his House seat on March 10, 1980. Tauzin won a special election for the seat on May 17 and was sworn into office on May 22, just five months after winning a fifth term in the state house. He won by seven points. Tauzin defeated Democratic State Senator Tony Guarisco and another Democrat, who also later turned Republican: Jim Donelon. Tauzin then won a full term in November 1980, with 85 percent of the vote. For 15 years, Tauzin was one of the more conservative Democrats in the United States House of Representatives. Even though he eventually rose to become an assistant majority whip, he felt shut out by some of his more liberal colleagues and sometimes had to ask the Republicans for floor time. When the Democrats lost control of the House after the 1994 elections, Tauzin was one of the cofounders of the House Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate-to-conservative Democrats. However, on August 8, 1995 Tauzin himself became a Republican, claiming that conservatives were no longer welcome in the Democratic Party. He soon became a Deputy majority whip, becoming the first Congressman to have been part of the leadership of both parties in the House. Regardless of party, Tauzin remained popular at home. After 1980, he was reelected 12 more times without major-party opposition; the first nine of those completely unopposed. Tauzin served as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee from 2001 until February 4, 2004 when he announced he wouldn't run for a 13th full term. Tauzin, who has five children by his first marriage, heavily backed his son, Billy Tauzin III, as his replacement, even going so far as to appear in ads that were criticized as blurring the lines on which man was actually running for Congress. In spite of his father's support, the younger Tauzin was defeated by 569 votes by Democrat Charlie Melancon. During his tenure, he left his mark on issues ranging from natural gas, airline, trucking and electricity deregulation to the Clean Air Act, Superfund and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In addition, he was an original author of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and the Cable Act – bills which went on to become law despite a Presidential veto. In 2003, he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield Controversies Tauzin endorsed Jerome Schneider's book "The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens," dubbing the book "A serious contender for the best book on offshore banking I've ever seen." Tauzin also spoke at one of Schneider's tax conferences. After Schneider pled guilty in 2004 to assisting hundreds of people to avoid taxes through sham offshore banks, a spokesperson for Tauzin called his endorsement "a stupid mistake." Career as a lobbyist While recovering from a fight with cancer, Tauzin resigned from Congress and began work as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, a powerful trade group for pharmaceutical companies. Five years later he announced his retirement from the association (as of the end of June, 2010). Two months before resigning as chair of the committee which oversees the drug industry, Tauzin had played a key role in shepherding through Congress the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, a bill which had been criticized by opponents for being too generous to the pharmaceutical industry. The switch from regulator to lobbyist was widely noted. This link was explored at great length in an April 1, 2007 interview by Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. The report, Under the Influence, pitted Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) against Tauzin and accused him of using unethical tactics to push a bill that "the pharmaceutical lobbyists wrote". Along with Tauzin, many of the other individuals who worked on the bill are now lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry. Michael Moore's 2007 film Sicko levied similar criticism. , sickothemovie.com As head of PhRMA, Tauzin was a key player in 2009 health care reform negotiations that produced pharmaceutical industry support for White House and Senate efforts. Reportedly, proposals for Medicare Part D cost reductions and permitting drug importation from Canada were dropped in favor of $80 billion in other savings. Tauzin now is on the Board of Directors at Louisiana Healthcare Group. References External links *Boston Globe "High cost for me-too drug" By Marcia Angell February 12, 2007, boston.com *CBS NEWS "Under The Influence 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Reports On Drug Lobbyists' Role in Passing Bill That Keeps Drug Prices High" New York, April 1, 2007, cbsnews.com *Entry in the Congressional Biographical Dictionary, bioguide.congress.gov Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana Category:Louisiana State Senators Category:Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives Category:American lobbyists Category:Louisiana State University Law Center alumni Category:Nicholls State University alumni Category:People from Lafourche Parish, Louisiana Category:American people of French descent Category:Cajun people Category:Louisiana Democrats Category:Louisiana Republicans Category:Nonprofit executives de:Billy Tauzin